SHARP organs

[Ron Nossaman]

At 11:19 AM 6/9/99 -0400, you wrote:
>
>I have been asked to tune pianos to organs in the past week during a
>summer-like heat wave here. The organs measured more than 20 cents sharp at
>A4. I feel pretty confident of my pitch raising abilities (at least short
>term), but really, how much is too much? I know next to nothing about
>organs, but is there something that can be done to keep them more in tune?
>Refrigerate the air intake room or something? I know some of you would
>refuse to tune that sharp, but what's a tech to do?
>Ken Jankura
>Newburg, PA
> 


Around here, most organ tuners don't pay any attention to the overall pitch
of the organ at all. They have a memorized diversionary pitch (verbal) to
the effect that "organs seek their own pitch level, so it doesn't do any
good to tune them at 440". What this means, of course, is that they know
that the organ goes out of tune before the tuner gets done with the first
rank, never mind where it will be by Sunday morning, so they won't do any
more than touch it up where it is to minimize the pain; a "play it where it
lies" sort of philosophy. The music director then wants the piano tuner to
compromise the far more pitch stable piano to "match" the wildly drifting
organ which hasn't been tuned at an intentional pitch for who knows how many
years, so they will sound good together, and at A 440 to go with the other
instruments, a mere five days and who knows how many, and how wild,
temperature and humidity changes from now. If they aren't in tune and on
pitch Sunday, who's fault will it be? Right, and why aren't the organ tuners
assigned any blame in these situations, even in those instances where it's
not their fault either! I tell them I will tune the piano at 440, they can
get the organ tuned at 440, and play them happily together until such time
as the temperature, and/or humidity changes from where it is right now
(right here). Maintaining the tunings is primarily a local climate control
problem, which isn't in my job description, doesn't show up on my paycheck,
and subsequently, isn't my problem. I just install the tuning, it's up to
them to take care of it. I explain how I could tune the piano, say, ten
cents sharp to "match" the organ today, only to have the organ go ten cents
flat by Sunday, while the piano has barely moved in pitch, which is why I
balk at doing it. Tune the piano at 440, and as well as you can, and tell
them that the organ will be in relatively good tune with the piano at least
twice a year, for about a half hour, as they pass. Those would be good times
to schedule the services.

Shazbatt! How badly do you need the gig?

 Ron